Finding the Pieces
by Eyes-of-Pearl
Summary: COMPLETE. “So Tomoe Hotaru, what’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?” “A junkyard is a place for the abandoned and the lost.” One was a sailor senshi and the other was a Gundam pilot. What could they find in a common in the middle of a junk yard


**Finding the Pieces**

_by: Eyes-of-Pearl_

**Rating**: K+

**Disclaimer**: Gundam Wing and Sailor Moon belong to their respective owners.

**Author's Note & Synopsis**: I found this unfinished piece on my hard drive. After rereading what I had already written, I found myself intrigued with the idea, so I had to finish it.

AU. "So Tomoe Hotaru ... What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" ... "A junkyard is a place for the abandoned and the lost." One was a sailor senshi and the other was a Gundam pilot. What could they find in a common in the middle of a junk yard?

* * *

**Finding the Pieces**

Behind the facade and the tediousness of this war, they were floundering. They struggled between finding oneself and reconciling with the outward display of steadfastness. There were five of them, an elite group who were responsible for the Gundams. Like the mobile suits, each pilot was a separate entity in of themselves. There was 05, Chang Wufei, strong and swift like a dragon, sworn in his loyalty to Nataku and all that she stood for. Quatre Rebarba Winner, code name 04, was liked the torrid lands where he was hailed from, passionate in his resolve. While on the other hand, Trowa Barton 03 was silent and stealth liked the night. Of course, there was the enigma, the ever elusive and seemingly perfect 01, Heero Yuy who cheated death more than once.

Finally, there was him, 02, Duo Maxwell, the self-proclaimed God of Death. To put it simply, he was different from the rest of the other guys, not like the stoic Heero, or the reserved Trowa. His composure was a far cry from the even-tempered Quatre or the inflamed Wufei. He had an annoying sense of humour; he made jokes and poked fun at the world. It was really sadistic considering the line of the 'work' that he was in.

Through the war, they all learned to cope and deal with everything that they had committed and seen. Wufei with his meditation, Quatre and his violin, Trowa with the circus and Heero ... well Heero was in a class of his own. Duo supposed that Heero dealt with everything through his self-imposed exiles.

Duo himself escaped to the junk yard. It was literally a means of escape - a place filled with pieces of abandons and unwanted knick knacks. His job there, was to sort trash into piles and divide them again into more insignificant groups. It was an useless mundane task.

-o-o-

She was mostly misunderstood and feared because of her abilities. At times, she had violent seizures that sprang up in the moments of greatest stress. She had strange powers; she could heal wounds with a mere touch of her hand.

People placed a stigma on concepts that they couldn't and wouldn't comprehend. The result was isolation and loneliness, but to her, it was already the status quo. She was after all Sailor Saturn, the soldier of death and rebirth. Nobody would want to associate with someone who could destroy an entire planet with the wave of her scythe.

She wasn't in this world by choice. She wasn't needed yet in her world - 21st Century Tokyo was still in a deep freeze and Crystal Tokyo had yet to be awakened to welcome the reign of Neo Queen Serenity. Like Sailor Pluto, she wasn't meant to be asleep with the others. She was supposed to stand guard, as the crux in the balance between dark and purity, the night beyond the horizon.

Her alter ego was Tomoe Hotaru. Like her name, she was liked a firefly, small but delicate, seemingly fragile with hidden strengths. Hotaru tried to make sense of her current existence. She was alone; it came with the territory of being a senshi.

She wandered the streets of L2 with a vague purpose in mind. She had been in various shops and out-of-the-way places around town. She was looking for something but with little success. What she had in mind was slightly hard to construe, but she was convinced that she would know once she saw it. Hence, she found herself at the junkyard and began sifting.

-o-o-

He marveled at the things that he came across in his job. Scrap metal could be recycled. Papers could be burnt. It was the seemingly ubiquitous objects that always stopped him in his tracks. Sometimes, he would find parts of a photograph, broken toys, pieces of furniture. It was things that people needed in their homes, things that held some value to somebody once upon a time. But not once did he expect to find a teenage girl with obsidian hair and royal eyes.

"What's a babe like you doing in a place like this?" he asked.

-o-o-

Rummaging through the piles of mess, she lifted up her find. It was a lamp; she had a hobby of collecting them since she was a child. Some were kept in her collection because of its lamp shade, others for their light bulbs... She had collected many, fixed them up and stored in various parts of her room. She couldn't really explain her fascination for such an irreverent object.

The process was tedious. Rarely, she found lamps in their original condition. Sometimes, she would go out of her way to antique stores for some of her hunts. But, this time she was lucky. In amongst some trash, she caught a flash of silver, glass reflecting light. She found that it was fake crystal, one that was part of a series on a lamp shade. Holding up for a closer inspection, the light refracted and reflected in front of her, revealing a pair of indigo eyes that weren't her own.

-o-o-

She was startled from his words and his sudden presence in front of her. She chided herself silently for letting her guard down. She lowered her hands and focused on the teen who wore a childlike smirk on his face.

"So, are you going to answer my question or not?"

For a moment, she couldn't formulate a coherent sentence and he cocked his head at her silence. Like a trained soldier that he was, he assessed her from head to toe. He quickly came to a conclusion that she could not be older than 14 with her porcelain face and delicate fingers that clutched a piece of a lamp shade. His breath was caught by her eyes - molten quicksilver, she appeared ageless with infinite melancholy.

"Listen," he scratched his head as if to formulate a statement to garner some sort of a response.

"I'm sorry," Hotaru quickly spoke up, sparing them both from further awkwardness, "I wasn't expecting anyone here."

Duo breathed out a sigh of relief and waved off her apology. "Ah no worries, babe. I should be the one apologizing for scaring you like that."

She hummed in response, contributing no further to the conversation as she turned and walked away.

Seeing her departure, he called back to her, "Hey, wait a minute." Duo could not be more surprised by her silence and cold exterior. He was used to this from his companions but rarely, did anyone rejected him in the middle of a conversation.

Hotaru didn't understand this guy's fascination with her. He was just a guy, a young one who couldn't be older than 16. His chestnut brown hair was tied up in a single braid behind him. His clergy attire was loose and comfortable on him, but somehow, it seemed out of place.

He caught her by her left elbow in a firm but steady grip, not enough to hurt, but enough to know that he wanted some answers. Her head snapped back quickly and her eyes flashed a dangerous gleam of maroon. He knew to give her some distance, when he raised his arms in defence.

"Babe, are you always this rude with guys who scared you? You know, I did apologize."

Instead of answering his question, she asked, "Why do you call me, babe?"

"Well, considering I don't know your name and it will be rude of me to call you, 'girl' or 'hey you.' Besides, you are a babe."

Seeing her incredulous look, he defended himself, "Babe, I may run and hide but I'll never tell a lie."

"Tomoe Hotaru. My name is Tomoe Hotaru," she interjected.

"See? That wasn't so hard, Tomoe Hotaru. I'm Duo Maxwell."

Again, she hummed in response. Hotaru wasn't used to having someone interested in who she was.

"I must go now, Duo Maxwell."

Again, he called her back with a question, "So Tomoe Hotaru, you never answered my question. What's a girl like you doing in a place like this?"

"What do you mean?"

"A junkyard is a place for the abandoned and the lost."

She turned to look at him squarely. With a ghost of smile, she held up her find, "I'm just looking for lamps."

"Funny place to look for them. Why don't you just go to a store to buy them?"

"I collect them, pieces and parts of a lamp that people no longer need or desire. It defeats the purpose if I go and buy them."

Warming up to the topic, she asked, "What about you? What is a guy like you doing in a place like this?"

"Don't be so sure that you have me figured out, babe. I guess you can think of this as a hobby of mine, the way you collect lamps. Look around. Everywhere are reminders of the war. Sometimes, I find scrap metal that could have been part of a building, a car or an office equipment. I see broken pictures of families that are now torn apart. I see smiling faces of people that may or may not be alive anymore. I see toys that no longer of owners. So, I come here to sort out the pieces, all the unwanted and discarded."

How could he make her understand without giving away his secret as a Gundam pilot? What did a girl like her know of the destruction that laid in the wake of a war zone?

Somehow, she managed to surprise him with her answer, "Then, perhaps you and I are not so different, Duo Maxwell."

"Everywhere, I see darkness and death and with it, comes silence and solitude. But, I have seen enough to understand that life is a continuum. Why do you think I collect lamps, an innocuous object to most people? We all desire light, happiness and hope. Some of us have no choice but to achieve those thing in some superficial way."

"It makes us normal somehow."

This time, she smiled brightly and nodded, "See, you and I do understand each other."

When she turned to go this time, he only called back to her to ask, "Do you think we will ever find it?"

Her eyes swept across the forlorn place around her and then downwards to the object in her hand. She looked up to the teen before her and asked, "What do you think?"

"I like to believe that, if only for a single moment of normalcy and companionship."

"Well, Duo. For a moment there, I feel pretty normal."

_The End_

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AN: Not the best ending that I can come up with, so I may change it later but for now it works. Please r/r. 


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